interestingcuriosfandomcom-20200213-history
Cathy Gale
Cathy Gale, alternatively known as "Pussy" Galore, was a British secret agent and one-time organiser of an American crime gang, the Cement Mixers. Early Life Cathy Gale was born in the 5th October 1932 in England, and, at the age of five, moved out to Harlem, located in Manhattan, America. She lived their with her parents and had quite a happy life, until in 1944 she was assaulted by her uncle. This turned her into a lesbian, and may have influenced her decision to take up with a group of acrobats. She adopted a stage name, "Pussy Galore", and began touring. However, soon after, she realised that the entertainment business was not working out for her, and so she and her troupe of acrobats became cat burglars, and changed their name to the "Cement Mixers". From 1952 to 1957, Pussy Galore was the only woman in the United States who was known for running an organised crime gang, and so she was justly feared. Operation Grand Slam In 1957, Pussy Galore was asked by the Latvian millionaire, Auric Goldfinger, to help him and a team of several American gangsters (Jack Strap of the Spangled Mob, Las Vegas; Mr Solo of the Unione Siciliano; Billy "The Grinner" Ring of the Machine, Chicago; and Jed Midnight of the Shadow Sindicate) to participate in "Operation Grand Slam". Operation Grand Slam was Goldfinger's codename for his scheme that involved "knocking off" the U.S. bullion depository at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Through the use of a chemical created by the Germans during World War II, Goldfinger planned to poison the water supply at Fort Knox, thus rendering everyone on the base (60,000) dead. From there Goldfinger would use an atomic bomb he had purchased for one million USD to blow open Fort Knox's impregnable vault. With the help of American gangsters, Goldfinger would then remove roughly 15 billion dollars in gold bullion and escape. The Cement Mixers were tasked to impersonate the nurses in fake emergency medical teams he planned to send into the poison-stricken Fort Knox. Alas, James Bond, a British secret agent foiled Goldfinger's plan by getting word to Felix Leiter of the impending operation. With the help of The Pentagon, Leiter was able to stop Goldfinger, and foil the operation. After Bond and Felix Leiter foiled "Grand Slam", Galore ran into Bond while impersonating a stewardess on Goldfinger's hijacked escape flight to the Soviet Union, which carried his remaining fortune in gold. Bond, having previously been drugged by a fake vaccination, had been kidnapped and transported onto the plane to join Goldfinger, who was determined to kill him at last. However, Bond punctured one of the airplane's windows with a knife (causing Goldfinger's henchman Oddjob to be blown out and plunge to his death), then tackled Goldfinger, and, in the ensuing struggle, killed him. Bond then forced the crew of the airplane to reverse course. When the gold-heavy craft ran out of fuel, and the crew had to ditch it in the ocean, Bond and Galore were the only ones who manage to escape onto a life raft. Married Life After Operation Grand Slam, Galore changed her name back to Cathy Gale and returned to London, where she met a farmer from Africa up on holidays. His lifestyle as appealing to her as the man himself, she married him and moved to Africa. There she learned to hunt and handle guns, to fix trucks and, in general, to be self-sufficient—she would have been termed a "renaissance man" had she been born the opposite gender. After her husband was killed on the farm, Cathy remained in Africa a few more years and added photography to her unusual array of skills. Eventually returning to London, she earned a Ph.D. in anthropology and took her studies to the field—she was nearly killed during an excursion to the Amazon. While working as a curator in a London museum, her life took a sudden right-angle turn when John Steed asked for her help in a matter regarding black magic- a cult lead by a certain Cosmo Gallion, a former student of Oliver Haddo. Although his work as an undercover agent intrigued her, his ruthlessness and callous attitude repulsed her- possibly a bitter memory of her time with James Bond. It was mostly out of the desire to assist those in need that she agreed to work with him—that, and the sheer thrill of risking life and limb for a worthy cause. And so her collaboration with Steed became something of a love-hate relationship. Yet it was her unyielding moral conviction that saved his career—indeed his life—on one occasion, as she came to his defense when his superiors, in their ignorance, had forsaken him. Ironically she retired from professional sleuthing while she was at her peak; in all likelihood this was out of a desire to avoid it becoming drudgery. Category:Pages Category:People Category:Secret Agents and Spies